In my home town
there was (until recently) a guy in his forties named Jeff. He had wild curly red hair, a Grizzly Adams red beard and a very strange affect about him.

I first met Jeff while visiting my parents. I was clearing up some branches that had fallen from a tree between their house and the neighbor when I saw this odd looking guy and introduced myself. He acted somewhat spacey, but seemed friendly enough. I finished cleaning up the branches and went on to another task.

A little bit later he wandered over with an mp3 player and began telling me all about what he was listening to, basically a diatribe by some spiritual whacko going on about UFOs or some such. I was polite and feigned interest until his father called him and he went back to his house. Odd but harmless, I decided.

The next day he appeared again as I was doing more yardwork and chatted with me. I told him that I'm an engineer and described some of the things I've done professionally. After a few minutes of this I asked him what he did. "I'm an artist," he replied.

"Really? Cool! What's your medium?"

He considered for a moment. "Urine."

(ummm... what the FUCK?!?) "Urine?"

"Yeah. Drinking urine can cure cancer. The shamans used to drink the urine of male babies because it's the most powerful..." He continued on like this for some time. "My dad doesn't like it, though. He gets mad at me a lot. I did a lot of acid in the early 80s, and he hasn't liked me much ever since."

I wound the conversation down somehow, and made my way back indoors. Dad had been watching me talking to this guy and said, "So what did you learn?"

Yes, I told him. He looked like I had just shown him footage of Rodney Dangerfield having a wank onto Ann Widdecombe.

Thereafter he was known as Jeff the Piss Artist.

(Eventually he talked a bit too much about his interests around town and was basically invited to leave and not return. No idea where he is now.)
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 27 Sep 2012, 21:31, 2 replies)

Hiding in the woods,
and hunting the sheriff, I would hope.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 28 Sep 2012, 12:58, closed)

Fortunately no.
His father told me that he had gone out to Colorado, but wasn't sure of anything past that. He clearly didn't want to talk about it, as one would expect.

A bartender told me that the incident that was the tipping point was when he stopped a young couple on the street who were pushing a stroller and offered to buy their son's urine from them. The bartender had rushed out to the street before Jeff got beaten and managed to steer him off to safety while trying to calm the father down, but they went to the cops anyway.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sat 29 Sep 2012, 8:04, closed)